Following (big) data in the smart city: control rooms, expertise and obligatory passage points in Santiago's public transport

Thesis

Smart cities and big data have been at the forefront of urban discussions and projects over the last decade. Big data has arisen as a critical feature of the smart city to face urban challenges, usually framed by projects and policies promoting a direct relationship whereby more volume, variety, velocity and fine-detailed data will necessarily lead to better-informed decisions and, therefore, to the more effective and efficient government of cities. However, these approaches generally ignore how big data circulates and what it does.

In this dissertation, I offer an alternative to previous formulations of big data in the smart city. Accordingly, I aim to analyse how data circulates in Santiago de Chile's public transport and what it does when it circulates. Drawing on the case of Santiago de Chile's public transport, I describe and analyse the emergent configurations, practices and governing techniques which enable big data to circulate. This creates what I call the data dispositif.

I work with an experimental "following the data" methodology to identify how data circulation problems and their subsequent solutions emerge in Transantiago after more than ten years of implementation. Accordingly, I find that enabling big data circulation requires taking care of three emerging problems: the problem of control room fragmentation, the problem of experts and expertise, and the problem of translation. I argue that these problems are generative of specific solutions, taking the form of policies, indicators, standards, and new skills, which together produce new arrangements that allow data to circulate in ways beyond the initial operational objectives of public transport.

Authors: Pérez Karich, IJ

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-9ergr5evq
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: big data; transantiago; transport; critical data studies; smart cities; science and technology studies
• Subjects: Urban transportation policy; Science and Technology Studies; Qualitative research--Methodology; Urban geography